LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

protect your brain

Prediabetes Makes Your Brain Fat

by

I have forever been preaching on just how incredibly dangerous prediabetes is to pretty much every organ system in your body.

The disturbing fact is that over HALF of the industrialized world is prediabetic.  The prediabetic condition is largely ignored by mainstream medicine until it crosses that magical point and earns the name diabetes.

Because prediabetes has already been shown to be devastatingly bad for the brain and has been strongly associated with migraines, Parkinson’s disease as well as Alzheimer’s dementia, this particular article should come as no big shocker.  In it, researchers looked at the percentage of palmitate (a fatty associated associated with things like heart disease) in the brains of those people with prediabetes and found the levels 86% higher.

More disturbing, though, is that metformin is the mainstay of treatment of diabetics in the initial course of the disease, but ONLY affects the liver, leaving the fat, bone, muscles, heart and brain (as we see here) in jeopardy.

Red Wine and the Brain

by

DO I NEED TO DRINK MORE WINE TO PROTECT MY BRAIN?
It’s no surprise that wine (or specifically, the resveratrol content of red wine) has protective benefits in moderation, but you may not understand exactly how resveratrol works.
Calorie restriction without nutrient restriction has consistently shown to extend lifespan in mammals.  This calorie restriction works by improving the health and number of the mitochondria by activating a set of genes called the Sirtuin genes.
Research on resveratrol has found that it resveratrol activates this same Sirtuin pathway.  In this particular study, researchers looked at the additional ability of resveratrol to protect the brain from a neurotransmitter called glutamate, which can create a wave of brain damage with seizures and migraines.

 

Exercise, Memory, Depression and Your Brain; Great News!

by

The list of things you can do to protect your brain and improve brain function is quite long, but there is one things that is always at the top.

Exercise.

There is absolutely, positively no doubt that exercise is incredibly important for your brain.  And this is regardless of what you are worried about or what you are dealing with.  Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, depression, anxiety, chronic migraine headaches, seizures, multiple sclerosis…

Sadly, this tool is brought into play far too seldom.  The second you walk into your neurologist’s door, the first question he or she should be asking is how is your exercise routine going. All too frequently medications are the only item of discussion.

How exactly exercise helps the brain is yet to be figured out, but it’s likely working by several mechanisms:

  1. Improved blood flow to the brain.  More blood flow means more nutrients and healthier brain cells.
  2. Release of the hormone irisin through exercise.
  3. Muscles use glucose.  More muscle means better glycemic control and lowered risk of diabetes.  Prediabetes and diabetes destroy the brain.

And probably several more ways that I can’t think of right now.  This particular article adds to the list.  In it, researchers looked at the effect of the hormone adiponectin on the brains of mice.

Adiponectin is a hormone produced by the fat cells in the abdomen.  This hormone is essentially an anti-diabetes hormone.  As I mentioned, since diabetes is so bad for the brain, it might make sense that adiponectin would have positive effects on the cells of the brain.

But the specifics are what were so surprising:

  • Adiponectin can cross the blood–brain barrier.  Higher levels in the brain increased the number of brain cells and decreased depression-like behaviors.
  • A deficiency of adiponectin, however, cut short the beneficial effects of exercise in increasing the number of brain cells in the hippocampus (the region affected by Alzheimer’s dementia).

Because researchers were using mice, they were able to modify the hormone levels.  But, in your own brain, these same effects can be achieved through a combination of living an anti-diabetic lifestyle and exercise.

The anti-diabetic lifestyle will increase the levels of adiponectin being released by your fat cells.  The higher levels of adiponectin will give you the best possible effects of exercise on your brain.  Specifically, according the this study, the hippocampal region of your brain will benefit.  This is the region that is heavily involved with memory.

So, if you are a migraine sufferrer, it is not exercise alone that is going to protect your brain and your memory.  Exercise needs to be coupled with an anti-diabetic diet to have the full effect on protecting your brain.

Want to avoid Alzheimer’s dementia?  Same story.

Depression?  Anxiety?  Same story.

Get the point?  You cannot change or improve one aspect of your lifestyle without making changes in other areas as well.  Anything less will not give you the full benefit.

 

What Are You Snacking on? Make Better Brain Choices

by

When the idea of snacks are brought up, the scary choices like Doritos, chips and nachos come to mind.  But what do you think these do to your brain?

Becomes vaguely reminiscent of the “This is your brain.  This is your brain on drugs.” commercials.  The unhealthy fats in most snacks (high in omega 6 from corn, soybean and cottonseed oils) have been linked to lower IQs and overall brain function.  Personally, I would prefer eating snacks that support brain health rather than destroy it.

Enter the beloved cacao bean.  Believed to have originally been grown in the shadow of the Andes mountains, the cacao bean is most commonly used to make chocolate and cocoa; two food items that are rarely thrown across the room by disgruntled toddlers.  Here’s the best part—the research consistently and strongly shows that cacao based compounds are really protective to your blood vessels.  Protect your blood vessels and you protect your brain and heart.  If these benefits came from gnawing on bark and grass from an untainted field, I could understand some reluctance.  But it’s chocolate.

This particular study yet again demonstrates to benefits of cacao compounds on the brain.  Researchers looked at neurovascular coupling, a term referring to the changes in blood flow that occur with activation of certain areas of the brain.

60 participants at an average age of 72.9 years were given cocoa and followed for one month.  They were evaluated for both neurovascular coupling and cognitive function measured via the Mini-Mental State Examination and the Trail Making Test A and B (A targets are all numbers and the test taker needs to connect them in sequential order, and B alternates between numbers and letters).  The test were evaluated at the 24 hour mark and the one month mark.  When possible, MRIs were also used to look at the white matter of the brain.  Here’s what they found:

  • In those participants who had impaired neurovascular coupling at the beginning of the trial, results improved (from -2.4% up to 5.6%).
  • Times to complete Trail B improved 44% as well (from 116 to 167 seconds).
  • Under MRI, the white matter of the brain demonstrate better structural integrity.

While some of the results may seem a little confusing, let me sum it up for you:

You need to take more cocoa, dark chocolate and straight up cacao.  Pretty simple.

Neurodegeneration: Dementia Support Starts Here

by

Alzheimer’s and Parkinsons are fearsome. The neurodegeneration robs you of your mind and body. Prevention is possible, but dementia support has to start NOW.

I know that I’ve covered the mitochondria before since it is, after all, everyone’s favorite organelle.  But it never hurts to review (besides, if you ever get on Jeopardy you can say, “Alex, I’ll take cellular organelles for $500, please” with confidence).

Think way back to your high school biology class and the anatomy of a cell. To the mitochondria. The little “powerhouse of the cell.” That little organelle within the cell that helps to generate energy for a cell. And the “energy currency” for every cell is adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. There are some billion or so reactions that occur in our body EVERY SECOND, and each one of these requires a molecule of ATP to get the job done.

Some tissues, like fat, use very little energy.

Others, like the heart, our muscles and our brain, use much more.

At rest, the nervous system, which includes our brain, is the greatest utilizer of ATP in the body. Once we start moving, the muscles take over and have the greatest need.

Poor lifestyle choices that lead to exposure to toxic chemicals, stress and processed foods begin to damage these precious little ATP-producing buggers.  Luckily, a lifestyle devoid of stress with minimal toxic exposure and lots of fruits, veggies and spices can protect our mitochondria.

However, if the brain cells lose too many of their own mitochondria through this damaging process, ultimately the remaining mitochondria can no longer keep up with the energy needs of the cell and the cell begins a process called apoptosis, or cell suicide.

If you can envision the solid Scottish accent of Scotty from Star Trek calling up to the bridge saying, “Captain, we can hold ‘er together anymore,” than you get an idea of what begins to happen (except Captain Kirk always seems to figure out the problem and save the USS Enterprise—not so much for our brains at this point…).

Left unchecked, this loss of neurons over the course of years can lead to other neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.

If you would like to protect your brain and have it last at least as long as your body, then you need to begin NOW to protect it.  Ways to protect your brain from dementia and neurodegeneration have been covered in previous posts and can be read here.

This particular review looks at this process of damage to our mitochondria and the subsequent neurodegeneration that occurs.  I thought I’d throw it in just in case you thought that I really had no idea what I am talking about (especially since your neurologist has mentioned that we don’t know what causes the brain to break down).

If you have a family history of a neurodegenerative disorder, what changes have you made NOW to protect your brain?